“Something’s off with Mrs. Stein,” Leah said nervously the next day. “She asked me where I went last night, what the boy ordered, if I think the shidduch will go anywhere — Gila, she doesn’t do this stuff.”

“Mrs. Stein? You’re imagining things,” I told her confidently over the phone. “Wait, you went out last night?”

“Not the point. How’d she even know I went out?”

“She’s your neighbor. Neighbors see things.”

“But it’s not her type to ask about my shidduchim! Something’s off….”

“You’re imagining things,” I repeated.

She called me again, later that afternoon.

“Gila, listen. There’s something wrong. Stein, she asked me what number boy this was. That’s not normal. She’s like morphing into a Yenta version of herself.”

“She’s not—” I stopped abruptly and re-ran Leah’s sentence through my head, an uneasy feeling spreading over me as random scenes from yesterday’s events replayed themselves. Stein in the teachers’ room, eating lunch, rushing off. Her bottle, the one I’d inadvertently swapped with my own. The labwork an hour prior….

“Leah,” I said slowly, my brain racing to mentally connect the dots. “When the vial broke yesterday, you salvaged some and put it in the refrigerator, right?”

“Right.” A pause. “Um, maybe I left it out on the counter?”

“In a flask? A vial? What container did you use?”

“Oh. I don’t remember.” Another long pause. “Um, maybe an empty water bottle? There was one lying around. Is — um — was that a problem?”

Uh oh.

She drank the Yenta activator.

Okay. Deep breath. Don’t panic yet! You can’t upregulate the Yenta Gene by drinking the activator. I was certain of that. It needed to be administered as an intramuscular injection! So we’re safe. We’re totally safe! No need to panic—”

“OMG,” Leah breathed. “Gila. GILA!”

I swallowed.

“She just texted me that she thought his ears stuck out too much!”

We need to get the Yenta Water back. ASAP.

“She leaves the back door unlocked.” My throat was dry as Leah and I stealthily crept across the back deck of Stein’s townhouse, the glow of a flashlight directing our midnight trek through the maze of lounge chairs and potted plants. “But I brought the spare keys she leaves with us anyway.”

“You’re sure they’re not home?”

“Positive, the Licht wedding is tonight.”

“Can we cut the lights?” Leah whispered, her breath tickling the back of my neck. “And why are we dressed in black? And wearing ski masks?”

“I don’t know.” Suddenly, our excursion didn’t seem to be such a good idea. I peeked through the back window. Dark inside.

“This is creeping me out,” Leah said tersely. “We’re breaking and entering! This is assur! Forget assur — this is illegal!”

I unlocked the back door. “This is pikuach nefesh, that’s what it is.” The door creaked open. “Don’t chicken out now. And besides, I’m her neighbor, she gave me her keys. We’re just popping in for — uh — a drink.”

Muttering something about mad scientists and should-have-gone-for-speech-therapy, Leah followed me gingerly inside. I hit a switch, the light flickered on, and Leah screamed.

“Are you crazy?” I hissed, my heart beating so fast I thought it would explode out of my chest. “The whole neighborhood heard that!” I exhaled. “Okay, check the fridge.”

We peeked inside. Nothing.

“Her handbag, maybe?” Leah said desperately. “What did it look like?”

“Black, Nine West, leather.”

We searched the first floor and gave up five minutes later. “Upstairs,” I commanded. “I’ll scout around, you stay here and make sure no one comes in. Okay?”

“What if someone walks in? What do I say?”

“That you were thirsty—” I stopped when I saw Leah’s panicky expression. “Okay, I’ll be the lookout, then, you go upstairs,” I told her. “I’ll yell if I hear anything.”

Leah gulped, nodded, and dashed up the staircase.

I wiped sweaty palms on my black skirt, every creak of Leah’s footsteps sending a fresh wave of heart palpitations through me. Hurry, Leah. Hurry.

Seconds went by. Minutes.

Where was Leah already?

And then I heard a car pull up in the driveway and my heart dropped.

“Leah!” I rasped. “Leah! They’re back!”

No answer.

“Leah!” I yelled, all caution thrown to the wind, and the bedroom door crashed open and she appeared in the hallway, panicked. “Forget the Yenta Water! Get out! We need to get out of here!”

“I found it!” she shrieked, stampeding down the staircase, water bottle in hand, as loud voices filtered in from outside through an open window.

“The gowns, they must have been from a gemach,” Mrs. Stein was blathering. “Not flattering at all, the gray color scheme, and the mechuteneste, I’m sorry, but she looked like a horse. And the food! Goodness, never in my life have I seen such a cheap smorgasbord, gefilte fish tarts and canned pineapple—”

We heard the turn of a key, and Leah and I bolted for the back door.

“—and you saw how the kallah’s father was glowering under the chuppah? You’d think he’d put on a bit of a show for four hours, though I don’t blame him an itsy bit, well, they claimed Mrs. Guggenheim was the shadchan but I’m positive they met on their own, and the chassan, his slim-fit suit was disgraceful—”

“Omigosh, omigosh, omigosh,” Leah croaked, as we both crashed outside to the deck. “I just aged ten years.”

“Let’s get out of here!” I stumbled down the steps, crossing through the tangle of bushes into the safety of my own backyard. “At least we got the bottle.”

“Uh, right. About the Yenta Water,” Leah began, and a sense of foreboding crept over me. “So there’s good news and bad news…. “

“The good news?”

“We got the bottle.”

“And the bad news?”

She lifted it up. “It’s empty.”

“We need to tell Dr. P.”

Leah paced the living room, white-faced. Mrs. Stein must have drunk the entire bottle; we’d spilled the remaining few drops in her back garden, washed the bottle with bleach in my bathroom sink and dumped it in the garbage.

“I called, left a message to call back. An emergency, I told him. I’ll call again.” I pulled my phone out and suddenly I felt the blood draining from my face.

Wait. It was my bottle. Did I drink the Yenta Water, too? I didn’t remember.

I feel fine, though.

I think.

“A drone?”

I gaped at the phone receiver, openmouthed.

“Yes, there was a drone following us!” Leah shrieked. She’d called me two days later, on my day off. Petrushky still hadn’t returned my call. “A drone! On the date! It’s like we created Franken-Yenta-Stein!” Her words spilled over themselves across the telephone wire. “The drone, it was buzzing over us during the car ride and I noticed it again hovering near the window of the Ritz, lights flashing. We tried to move, Gila, we were both freaked, we switched to the second floor and within three minutes it was inside—”

“You’re sure Stein was behind it? It wasn’t some kind of sibling prank?”

“Of course I’m sure! The word ‘STEIN’ was labeled on it!” she hollered. “The boy, he ran for help and that thing zoomed after him and he was freaking out and trying to shake it off—”

I sank back in my chair in horror. This is crazy.

Why wasn’t Petrushky calling back?

And then a strange sort of expansive calm spread over me, and I felt myself mellowing. A shidduch drone wasn’t such a big deal, if you thought about it, really. Quite a decent idea, actually….

“Did he say yes, at least?” I asked.

“—and he was like, machul lach, machul lach — what?” She stopped abruptly. “Did he say yes? DID HE SAY YES? Who cares?! Gila! What are we going to do?”

Hmmm… Speaking of shidduchim — I wondered if Leah ever heard of the six-times-around-the-ke’ara segulah, I heard it from a mekubal lady in Tzfas once, maybe I should mention it to her, a friendly suggestion, because between you and me, she doesn’t do enough for her shidduchim—

Wait.

I shot to the window. Why was Mrs. Kirzman passing the avenue at this hour? Did she get fired? I’d heard her place was doing layoffs….

“Listen, Leah, I have to go,” I said urgently into the phone. “Call you later!”

I flew downstairs.

Mrs. Kirzman had disappeared by the time I reached my porch, but I figured she wouldn’t mind if I popped by to visit. I grabbed a jacket, tossed a pair of binoculars in my bag — just in case — and headed out.

She wasn’t home when I rang the bell, but apparently she’d had a FedEx delivery. I rummaged through the boxes, looking up when I heard a voice call out to me.

“Gila! It’s Chaya Stein, across the street!”

I turned around.

“I’m on the rooftop, spotted you from my telescope,” Mrs. Stein said. “What did she get delivered?”

I looked up, and my neighbor leaned over the railing and waved.

“Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue,” I called back.

“Goodness me! I suppose the yerushah issue did work in her favor — you heard about that family spat, right? Terrible. They tried keeping it hush-hush, but there’s only so much one can do to keep those skeletons sitting still. But I’m delighted for her!

“Is she still talking to her sister, I wonder? She’s making chasunah next week, I suppose we’ll see if her brother-in-law gets a brachah under the chuppah. Oh, Gila, darling, I wanted to discuss something with you, in private — is now a good time?”

I glanced around me; the streets were empty except for a postal worker, and he was busy yakking on his cell. “Sure.”

“Lovely!” She lowered her telescope. “It’s your friend Leah. Did they break it off or is she still seeing the gentleman with the 2006 Honda?”

The postal worker stopped his phone conversation to stare. “Honestly, I don’t know,” I told her. “There may have been some sort of issue on the last date.”

“This shidduch must be pushed. How old is she, 29 already? We need to find out if it’s still on board.”

“Sure! I’ll call her every night, see if she picks up.”

“We must give her some coaching,” Mrs. Stein said. “I’m not judging, but let me just say that I did notice the few pounds she put on over the summer –”

“—daily cappuccinos and chocolate muffins do not help –”

“—maybe an anonymous note, we can drop it in her mailbox, or a referral to a nutritionist, perhaps coupons for NutriBullet to make spinach smoothies, so nutritious—”

“—someone told me if you drink a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar mixed with cayenne pepper before and after breakfast, it helps burn fat, I should tell her—”

“—and I did not fancy that black sweater she wore last time, was too simple—”

“—flats, she always wears flats, we need to say something—”

“Yes, yes!” Stein leaned over the rooftop. “And I know for a fact he’s the first boy she’s seen in months! And I hate to talk, but with her parents’ divorce — well. It is our duty to push this shidduch through! As neighbors, as friends, as fellow Yidden!”

“We can kidnap them both, force them out again, do you think that’s feasible?” I pictured Leah in a hotel lounge, handcuffed to the couch armrest. Or maybe attached to a leash.

“I bought a tracking device we can use,” Mrs. Stein offered. Her head disappeared. Then she popped up and tossed me down a small package.

“I’m on it,” I said.

Mrs. Stein phoned my cell as I was heading back home. “One more question!” she asked excitedly. “Your sweater, how much did it cost?”

To Do List:

Mr. Weiss, had triple-bypass last month and scarfing down schmaltz herring at the Kiddush — speak to wife, do not expect neighbors to split up Tehillim next time.

Yael Bergman: returned from “four-week vacation” and her nose looks different…. Confirm she had work done??

Reva’s too-short skirts now duty-length, long sheitel cut to chin, ditched Smartphone, husband grew massive beard — WHAT HAPPENED????!!!!!

I drove to the lab to pick up some paperwork I’d left there. Petrushky wasn’t there, but I met up with Leah briefly — we didn’t talk much — and then left. Loud voices from the house across the street caught my attention as I parked in my driveway. A young couple had just moved in…. shalom bayis issues…?

Oooooh.

Maybe I could help.?I jumped out of my car, darted across the street and tiptoed down the alley toward their backyard. They lived on the second floor; I desperately needed a better view.

A tree was planted in the middle of the yard, branches spreading in all directions, and without thinking, I shimmied halfway up.

Heart in my throat — I hadn’t done this since I was a nine, running around the Catskills — I tested my weight on a sturdy-looking branch and slowly inched forward, closer to the window. After some deliberation, I dug into my bag to pull out a hand mirror, carefully tying it to the branch above me. Now I could see what was happening on the street, too, and I watched Esti Cohen shepherd her kids — their outfits, nebach, they were so last season — onto her porch, and a brand-new Toyota Camry I didn’t recognize pull up in the Greenstein driveway. Who was that?

Maybe I should become a private investigator. I briefly imagined myself lowered in the front seat of my car at midnight, on a stakeout. I’d wear a dark trench coat, sunglasses—

A crack interrupted my train of thought. I quickly steadied myself, distributing my weight along the length of the branch, positioned my binoculars around my head and leaned forward. Elementary, my dear Watson, I imagined myself pronouncing gravely over a pipe, while using words like perp and allegedly.

My cell phone rang, and I scrambled for my pocket with the arm that wasn’t clinging to a branch.

“Gila. Gila!” Leah screeched when I picked up the call. “Stein just called me. Do you know what she did? Do you know what she did?”

No case too small, I’d say. “No, tell me!” On the street, legs encased in what looked like Mrs. Greenstein’s SAS shoes emerged from the Camry, and I reached up to re-position the mirror.

“She claimed she wanted to do, quote, a more thorough investigation of this boy’s family, and she went to his house last night before the collection trucks came and she searched through their garbage!”

“You’re kidding me!” I exclaimed, nearly losing my balance. “Regular or recyclables? What did she find?”

“What did she find?” She sounded apoplectic. “Recyclables? Gila! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

I steadied myself again on the branch and peered again through the binoculars — the voices had subsided, and which idiot invented window shades? And I was desperate to find out if they redid the awful interior design in the apartment. I simultaneously re-positioned the mirror with my free hand to get a better view of the car. “Nothing,” I said. “Honestly, Leah, I think you might be overreacting. Bottom line, you’re going out again? Inquiring minds want to know.”

There was a long pause on Leah’s end. “What’s the half-life of this thing?” she finally croaked.

I opened my mouth to respond, then heard another ominous crack.

And suddenly I was swinging wildly from the mirror, legs flailing into empty air, and before I could process what was happening, the branch above gave way, too, and I was tumbling, tumbling downward.

Which wasn’t that big of a deal, I realized. Though Faigy Weinstein was gaping at me in horror from the sidewalk and I couldn’t help but notice the tight leather boots she was wearing, and I know it’s none of my business, but honestly, she wasn’t raised that way; the rest of Mrs. Greenstein had shot out of her new car and was yelling something, and she can barely pay the rent and skimps on tuition so how did she afford that new Camry lease is my question; and the two Schwartz kids had stopped their usual fighting and were openly pointing at me, as usual left alone by too-liberal parents; and they all looked horror-struck, but honestly, falling out of a tree wasn’t a big deal at all—

And then I landed.

To Do List:

Cleaning lady four times a week?! Is Mrs. Singer dysfunctional? Casually bring over cookies, see what inside looks like.

Mrs. Reich’s Fendi — real or knockoff?? And what was she doing in consignment shop?

What’s the story with Mrs. Levy’s 26-year-old son and why is no one allowed to ask about him?

I spent the remainder of the night in the emergency room. The girl on my right looked familiar, and I racked my brain trying to remember where I knew her from. As the nurse was checking my vitals it hit me, and I yanked the thermometer out of my mouth and leaned over.

“I know you!” I exclaimed. “You see that therapist on Clearview Road, right? I saw you walking there last week. Are you okay? What are you here for?”

She looked stunned — then furious — but doctors swooped in around her and a resident came by to bandage my leg. Just a sprain, she told me, as I was trying to eavesdrop on the conversation next to me.

Maybe I should become a Bikur Cholim volunteer.

“So, what were you doing in a tree?” the ER resident asked conversationally as she was putting the final touches on my bandage.

I opened my mouth to respond, then blinked and stared at her.

“Leah, it was crazy!” I told her later, back in the lab the next day. “I was possessed!”

Leah slipped her gloved hand inside the cage and grabbed the next rat by the back of the neck, lifting its squirming body and dumping it in the container on the scale. Thursday was weight day in our lab. “560 grams,” she reported, and I jotted it down. She grabbed the rat to return it to its cage, shaking her head grimly. “Recyclables, huh. You’re lucky I’m still talking to you.”

I shook my head, wincing as shooting pains streaked up my neck. “I’m lucky? You’re the genius who stores clear liquids in water bottles!” I massaged my ribs gingerly. “How’s Mrs. Stein? Settled down yet?”

“I saw her this morning, she just waved. I’m not really sure.”

“Well, did the boy say yes?” For a second, Leah looked alarmed and I patted my phone and grinned. “Hey, I’m back to normal, don’t really care either way. But Stein’s waiting to hear from me.”

“Phew. His exact words were, ‘Forget breaks; I’m taking a shidduch leave of absence.’ ”

“Oh.”

“The garbage search, it didn’t make that great of an impression, honestly.”

“I see.”

“But ultimately—” Leah unlatched the next cage— “I believe it was the drone that did him in.”

I winced. “Oy. Sorry. No worries, she was going to call him directly to push. Lo tov heyos ha’adam levado, she planned to tell him.”

“Tell who?” Petrushky asked, entering the room. I’d debriefed him earlier on the events of the past few days. “So how did feel like, Ms. Yenta?” He buttoned his lab coat. Today’s Hawaiian shirt was fluorescent green.

“I don’t get how it happened,” I said, shidduch drama forgotten. “Wouldn’t the activator be degraded in the stomach? Doesn’t it need to be injected? Also, I drank the water before Stein, why’d it hit me a day later? And it’s taking her forever to wear off but me less than 24 hours?”

“Maybe, yes, affects people differently, depends on baseline variant expression,” Petrushky mused, halfway to himself. “She obese, yes? Activator, it is lipophilic so long time clear system if yes fat lady. But oral dose, still make no sense. I cannot believe — your story, is crazy. All Yenta Water gone, yes? Have none to test?”

I mentally kicked myself. “We threw it out. That was dumb, I know. There were a few drops left that we spilled in the back garden.”

“Into garden?” Petrushky chuckled. “Well! I no eat any fruit grown from there over next few years, if I am you. To be safe.”

I put my head in my arms.

“640 grams,” Leah announced, releasing the next rat back into its cage. “Shouldn’t we call the FDA or something? The CDC?”

Petrushky shrugged. “Hmm. Maybe, yes. You—” he pointed at me. “Maybe will check vitals, blood pressure, make sure is okey-dokey.”

I exchanged a glance with Leah. “Uh, they did, in the ER. All normal.”

We finished documenting the weights, slipped the glass containers of rat chow in their cages, and locked up the lab area. “Maybe we should tell Stein to get herself checked out,” I speculated, and Leah nodded wearily. “Let’s meet tonight after work. Oh, and before you go…” Leah looked at me warily. “Um, maybe give me your shoe? The left one.”

“My shoe?”

“Just hand it over, stop asking questions.”

Leah removed her oxford, warily kicking it in my direction.

I found the tiny disc inserted beneath the insole and tossed it into the garbage. “You should be okay now,” I said sheepishly, kicking back the shoe, and Leah just shook her head balefully.

“Fascinating,” Dr. Petrushky said, scratching his beard.

Leah and I met again outside Stein’s house that evening, this time in the front. “What should we tell her?” Leah asked nervously.

“The truth, kind of. We unintentionally swapped bottles, I realized later mine was contaminated with, uh, potentially hazardous waste from the lab, it’s probably okay but she should get herself checked out—”

“She’ll think she accidentally drank scabies. Or rat droppings. Listen,” she said suddenly, “what does it mean if they eat borscht-flavored potato chips? There were like three empty bags in the garbage bin, she told me, family-size, and that does sound weird.”

I gaped at her. “I thought it was over?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, but still….”

We knocked on the front door and it immediately flew open. “Gila!” Mrs. Stein said warmly. “Leah! So lovely of you to join!”

Behind her, a buffet table was set up with Sterno trays on one edge, hors d’oeuvres plated neatly along the other, and a gigantic fruit-punch bowl in the center, already half empty. Men I recognized from the neighborhood milled about in suits and ties, the pleasant chatter of ladies in the kitchen floating in. I winced as I saw Zissy Rubin wearing maternity, Reva shuckeling in the corner over Maariv, and Yael Bergman’s nose. I am a jerk, truly. Even if only in dormant form.

“Our shul fundraiser! Women through the back entrance—”

“We just had a quick question,” I interrupted, as Mrs. Reich walked by with her consignment handbag, head held high. No way was I making small talk with these people now without my mind wandering into the Yenta gutter. I asked if she remembered swapping waters at school, and she looked confused for a moment before her face cleared.

“Oh, that was yours! I saw a fresh bottle in my bag, poured some into a cup and took a sip, but spilled the rest into the water pitcher in the fridge once I realized it wasn’t seltzer — why are you asking?” Her face blanched. “Oh, dear. Don’t tell me it wasn’t filtered! Because I just added it to the fruit punch bowl, it was a tad too strong before — girls! Girls! Women through the back—”

I’d shot into the room as if fired from a rocket, Leah hot on my heels. We probably could dump the fruit punch before anyone got to it—

Just then, Mr. Stein’s clipped British accent boomed across the room.

“Shraga! You’re looking quite zaftig, aren’t you! Tell me—” his voice lowered conspiratorially, to the volume level of a foghorn, “you’re not considering a lap band, eh?”

There was a shocked silence, and from behind me, Leah let out a strangled giggle.

It was going to be an interesting week.

(Originally featured in Family First Issue 571)